Technological advances often bury quaint vestiges of simpler times. The latest victim may be the old expression, "dumb as a brick." Engineers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have ...

Ordinary red bricks can now be transformed into energy storage units, with a little help from a team of chemists and engineers at Washington University. The bricks, which cost about $3 to make, are ...

A new effort is taking a foundational approach to addressing environmental issues. Literally. Thanks to a new endeavor coordinated by Newcastle University in the United Kingdom, the very materials ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- A "smart brick" developed by scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign could monitor a building's health and save lives. "This innovation could change the face of ...

A lot of things are becoming "smart" these days, but bricks might not be something you'd expect to be added to the list. On the way to buildings that act like "large-scale living organisms," ...

Boring old bricks might not seem like something that can really be made high-tech, but researchers keep proving us wrong. Now, a team has found a way to turn bricks into energy storage devices, using ...

If these lumps of concrete look familiar, that’s because they take some of their inspiration from Lego—but there’s more to them than child’s play. Created by a company called Kite Bricks, the blocks ...